Top Stock Picks 2010 Quarterly Update (April)

At the beginning of 2010, I picked 4 top stocks as part of a blogger stock picking competition. As I was playing to win this year, I picked some pretty aggressive stocks which has come back to haunt me.

My Top 4 Stock Picks for 2010

Hanwei Energy (HE.TO) – This Chinese company provides products and services for the oil pipeline transportation, wind and coal energy industries. Even though they have been oversold, they maintain a strong balance sheet. They currently trade at less than half their book value, carry no long term debt, and have $0.28/share cash on their balance sheets. Trading price as of Dec 31, 2009: $0.82.

As a penny stock, this one was expected to have a lot of volatility. Unfortunately, it has moved severely to the downside due to an extremely disappointing earnings report. As of April 1st, 2010, this stock trades at $0.39 which represents a 47.6% loss thus far (ouch!). Disclaimer: I own a small position in HE.

Manulife Financial (MFC.TO) – Most of you have probably heard of Manulife Financial as they are the largest insurance company in Canada (in terms of market cap). I believe that Manulife has been oversold but hopefully return to strength in 2010. Trading price as of Dec 31, 2009: $19.33.

I expected MFC to come back strong with the other financial stocks, but it has remained relatively weak. I’m content that it has managed to squeak out a small gain thus far in 2010. As of April 1st, MFC closed at $20.25 representing a 5.4% gain including dividend. Disclaimer: I own shares of MFC held in my SM portfolio.

Cenovus Energy (CVE.TO) – I picked Cenovus as my oil play. Never heard of them? Neither did I until I looked up the constituents of the energy index. Encana recently split into two companies; ECA is now a natural gas company while all the oil and gas assets have gone to CVE. Trading price as of Dec 31, 2009: $26.50.

CVE was my pure energy play of the group and seemed like a logical pick as an ECA spinoff. As of April 1st, CVE closed at $28.12 representing a 6.9% gain including dividend.

QLT Inc (QLT.TO) – This is a riskier play of the batch as I picked them solely on their financial statements. QLT is a pharmaceutical company that creates and commercializes eye treatments. They trade below their book value, have no long term debt, and carry $3.81/share in cash on their balance sheet. Trading price as of Dec 31, 2009: $5.23

To be honest, I forgot I picked this stock until I reviewed the original post. As of April 1st, QLT closed at $5.31 representing a 1.5% gain.

Due to the drastic drop in my penny stock pick, the whole portfolio was negative for the quarter ( -8.45%). However, the year is still young, who knows where we’ll be by the end of the year.

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About the author: FT is the founder and editor of Million Dollar Journey (est. 2006). Through various financial strategies outlined on this site, he grew his net worth from $200,000 in 2006 to $1,000,000 by 2014. You can read more about him here.

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